


Entanglement

by ParadifeLoft



Series: Home Sweet // No Sweet Home [3]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied Emotional Abuse/Neglect, Jedi Critical, Loss of Autonomy, Mind Control, Not Canon Compliant, Trauma, alternative details and aftermath of the JK Act 2 ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22231933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadifeLoft/pseuds/ParadifeLoft
Summary: The mission to capture the Sith Emperor implodes, and the remaining crew of Rivka's ship limps back to the Republic. Khisit intends to take the casualty of their appointed Jedi warden as an opportunity to disappear again, but that plan ends up off the rails as well.
Series: Home Sweet // No Sweet Home [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601719
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	1. The Sith (the Jedi)

Pressure. So much pressure, another mind invading her senses and squeezing her reach in the Force down to almost nothing.

Rivka raised her lightsaber once more, limbs like lead, as if she could fend off another attack in the Force like a physical blow. It _felt_ physical, compressing her from the connections with minds, matter, the flow of the universe around her into nothing but her bodily shell; and edging her presence out of that too, as the fight continued.

Was she the last one standing? Braga and Sedoru, she thought she remembered seeing them fall, but she couldn't - check - ordinarily almost effortless and now she felt tiny, claustrophobic - _Leeha_ , what happened to Leeha - ?

Hundreds, hundreds of thousands of voices seemed to swarm into her ears, into her soul, and she swayed, dizzied… so many voices, some terrified, or despairing, or pained. All threaded through the cold, hungry malice of the Emperor. The effect was worse than the most intolerable chaos of Coruscant, even with that planet’s underlayer of disregarded suffering.

The part of Rivka that could still feel the outside, felt her crying out, quiet at first and then louder, as she clasped her hands inward, curling back and forth as she dropped to her knees, wrapping herself into a ball. The sound of her lightsaber, clattering on the floor.

_Help us!_ , chorused the voices. _Join us._

With each repetition, they blotted out the last piece of her own senses, bit by bit. Black eating at the corners of her vision.

Rivka floated on the sea of voices, fragmented souls, numb.

A distant heartbeat slowed.

Her body unfurled, and stood.


	2. The Jedi (the Sith)

Khisit practically bounded down the boarding ramp, so _so_ ready to be off this damn ship, ghost-haunted not to mention making them stir-crazy with the nearly two weeks it took to cross the entire galaxy from the Caldera to the Core. It hardly mattered what hour of the day it was local time; they were going to head out to the nearest train and spend the next twelve hours just wandering, anywhere they could find that looked interesting where they could stretch their legs, move around, forget themself and doomed missions and grab a bite and a drink -

The view outside once nature's lighting had fully replaced the shipboard glare knocked that train of thought violently off course and skidding to a stop. Bright sunlight, a smell of evergreen foliage and water, rather than the diffuse, climate controlled city sky and thrumming assault on the senses - instead of endless layers of skyscraper towers in a mish-mashed tumult of architectural styles, only a few buildings rose in Khisit's line of sight; gentle sloping lines on large, awe-suggestive shapes, stone carved and filigreed. It wasn't any place they could remember being before, but it was just familiar enough to tweak alarm bells ringing in their head.

They turned to look up at Kira, carrying baggage down out of the ship. "I thought you said we were going to Coruscant?"

It was hard to read through the exhaustion on Kira's face, but some expression of unease flickered through for a moment. "I was going to,” she said, “But with all that's happened I ended up making a last minute course change… Some parts of this business really couldn't wait…"

"So then where did we - "

Footsteps on the landing pad made Khisit turn once more; and then everything slotted into place like an electric shock.

Brown robes, with blue and beige and silver and yellow tunics beneath; a group of three people led by a pale, dark-haired human at the front -

Familiarity slid into the heavy immersion of a sense memory, a presence they knew since before anything else they could remember… _Ah._

_...fuck._

Khisit backed up reflexively, almost running into Kira as they swung back around toward the ship's ramp - she was still standing practically in front of it with her bags, and of a sudden something icy lodged in Khisit's lungs.

"What kind of _bullshit_ is this?"

Kira swallowed. "I spoke with the Council several times while we were in transit and they urged me to come to Tython immediately without any delays or stops in between - "

 _"I'm sure they fucking did_ ," Khisit exclaimed, snarl rising along the edge of their voice. "Now get out of my way."

"What, are you going to change your plans entirely and go sulk inside the ship just because we're on Tython and not Coruscant?"

"Oh, I'm not staying - "

"Welcome back to Tython, Knight Carsen," came another voice from behind them. Khisit flinched. "...Is there some sort of problem here?"

(What was the damn luck it would be Tryse sent out to greet them just on chance - ?)

" _Move_ ," said Khisit, stepping around Kira to get to the boarding ramp, not avoiding a (mostly unintentional) shoulder-check.

They'd strode halfway up into the ship, ignoring a chorus of _Hey!, Excuse me, Savrow -, Stop right there -_ , when each part of their body was tugged suddenly, forward momentum arrested by a pressure exerted in the opposite direction. It felt a bit like reaching the end range of a bungee cable, and Khisit’s heart jumped up into their throat. They tried to back up slightly, leaning toward the source of the strain to relieve the pressure.

Nothing. They couldn't move.

Khisit's eyes darted back, looking as far behind them as they could with their head nearly locked in place; the rhythm of their heart beat frantically enough to make up for every other limb that wouldn't budge.

"Let me _go_!" they shouted, throwing all their strength against the invisible restraints around their arms, legs, body. They crept forward a hairsbreadth, muscles straining.

Boots clacked along the boarding ramp, until Khisit could feel the familiar presence behind them like a pervasive perfume, infusing the air like clouds. "Not if you're thinking of trying to steal a vessel belonging to the Order in the middle of Tython," said Master Tryse Mavari, sensible and irritated and final all at once. A cousin, in essence, by Sith kinship - but it wasn't family that mattered among the Jedi, only history. "Khisit, that's absurd even for you."

They felt one of Tryse's hands on their shoulder; could feel her looking them over for a weapon - Khisit had left their blaster on the ship. No need for it if they were just a civilian, no guerilla campaign, no more missions with Rivka - _Rivka, who they left on the Emperor’s station, because it was a_ tactical loss - _Rivka who had tried to help them, even if her methods were patronising and naive at best_ -

The pang broke through fresh again, alloying Khisit's fury. At the same time, Tryse was grasping their arms, wrists, pulling them behind Khisit's back; and then they were forced down -

Their knees were able to buckle, and for a moment that was enough. Bonds slipped, or determination punched through, or _something_ , and they shoved their shoulders forward, twisting in Tryse's grasp even as it felt like fighting through tangled sheets, cursing and yelling. Then a few seconds later a second pair of hands fell on their shoulders and arms, and clapped real, physical restraints around their wrists.

("Khisit, are you _kidding_ me, use your head!" came Kira's voice, raised and exasperated, in the background. Did she think this was some kind of game? Of course, of course not, no, for Kira, the Jedi had been a lifeline.)

Tryse sighed, with an edge of frustration. "I hoped to have a reasonable discussion about your path going forward," she said, somewhere above Khisit's head, looking down. "But I suppose that will have to wait if you're going to act like this."

Panicked tears began to blur Khisit's vision. They'd never said it to themself, had they? It had just become a felt, unspoken axiom, somewhere in between shooting at Imps and dodging security firewalls, living free for once without the Jedi’s constant presence or back-of-the-mind scrutiny - they were never going back, ever. They _couldn’t_ go back to that.

Tryse’s hand closed around the side of Khisit's face; fingers splayed about their temple. Too warm, too human… For a moment, all Khisit's senses swam, going fuzzy and dim. And then they were silent.


End file.
